I have tried not to comment on the current situation with
the “Relentlessly Gay” campaign. I was just going to leave it alone, and not
say anything about how I feel about it. However, after the sketchiness of what
happened over the past couple of days, I feel the need to speak out my
opinions.
For those of you who do not know about the story, a “widow
with four children” Julie Baker found a note taped to her door. It was
basically telling her that her colorful lanterns on her front lawn were “gay”
and that she needed to take them down because it was disturbing her “Christian”
neighbors. Almost immediately, she posted the picture of her lanterns, plus the
supposed anonymous note, to her own personal Gofundme page. She was asking for
five thousand dollars to decorate her house and yard to make it “Relentlessly
Gay” for her neighbors to gaze upon. Over the course of five days, she raised
over 43k to decorate her house. With people volunteering to help her do it for
free if she bought the materials, that 43k should go a long way into making her
house and yard as “Relentlessly Gay” as she would like.
After a web domain claim, a t-shirt idea, and television
appearances, five days of being an internet star, and she disappeared. Her Gofundme
page was taken down, her website has a thank you message posted, and supposedly
she is trying to “prove” that the typed letter is not a hoax.
A hoax.
Yes, l said it. The word that has been floating around about
this woman since this whole thing started. Maybe it is how we are now, but on
the internet it is no longer a “Pics or it didn’t happen” society. Even with
pictures, it is difficult to believe that anything actually happened. People
are pointing out the glaring similarities in the anonymous letter and her own typing
skills. Others who know Julie Baker is in real life is have been coming out to
say this is not the first time she has been online asking for money for
something. The amount of money that she earned is being questioned. What is she
going to do with it? Is she going to donate some of the proceeds to a LBGT organization?
When is she going to start actually start making her house the “Relentlessly
Gay” that she was hoping for?
Julie Baker made the statement:
I want to humbly thank everyone for
their extreme generosity. Please now, take all of this good energy and help
each other. I just learned moments ago that I could turn off the donations, and
I am doing so because I there is plenty, more than plenty, above and beyond the
goal.
On a sadder note, the world is filled
with hate and fear, as such I want to work to remove any doubt about the
authenticity of the letter. Until then I am not taking a dime out of this
account.
Please carry on with flooding the world
with rainbows and joy, be relentlessly generous, be relentlessly compassionate,
be relentlessly vibrant and stay relentlessly gay.
With this statement, people are pretty much left in the dark about
what will happen now. As of just a few moments ago, Snopes.com, my go-to source
for something like this, doesn’t have an update beyond the police saying she
refuses to produce the note that was left on her door. The other news sources
are not reporting anything about her either. The web domain that she has
created has not had an update about her in a couple of days. Maybe Mrs. Baker
really is trying to focus on her life getting back to normal and trying to
figure out how she is going to spend the money. Or perhaps she realized that
she was caught in a lie and needs to lay low for a bit.
I am not really sure what to believe about her story. It could
have happened, could have not. However, I am sure that I am upset about the
fact that in five days she raised more money than people who need money for
medical treatments for cancer, couples who need money to adopt children who
desperately need a loving home, and people who want to have money to go back to
school for a degree to better their lives without student loan debt. I watched
the total climb higher and higher over the course of the five days, my rage
climbed with it. I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt until the
comments started popping up, and when the donations stalled she took her page
down. I watched the total of her donations stall for a day before she took down
her page. In my blind rage, I broke down the events of her story over
the last few days, and the fact that Mrs. Baker took down her donation page
when the funds stopped pouring in makes her look extremely suspicious. Combine
that with the accounts from people that know her and other glaring factors that
have been popping up since, people are starting to make it very hard to believe
that she actually had something like this happen to begin with in the first
place.
I am begging you, please, don’t let Julie Baker’s story discourage
you from donating to the worthy causes on Gofundme.com to help others better their
lives. I am just asking the you look at stories like these before you donate
money to the person and wonder if your money would serve a better purpose
somewhere else. I know I will.
